Study: Black Plastic Waste Made Into High Purity Carbon Nanotube Electrical Cables

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Research from Swansea University has found a way to help reduce the amount of plastic in the future by recycling it into new materials such as cables for electricity.

Since only a small portion of the many types of plastics actually can be recycled researchers hunted for other ways plastics can be reused after they have served their original purpose and now they found a way.

The research was published in The Journal for Carbon Research. It focuses on chemical recycling which uses the constituent elements of the plastic to make new materials.

Plastic is made of carbon, hydrogen and sometimes oxygen. Since plastics are pure and highly refined chemicals, they can easily be broken down into these elements and then bonded in different arrangements to make high-value materials such as carbon nanotubes.

Dr. Alvin Orbaek White, a Sêr Cymru II Fellow at the Energy Safety Research Institute (ESRI) from Swansea University said:

“Carbon nanotubes are tiny molecules with incredible physical properties. The structure of a carbon nanotube looks a piece of chicken wire wrapped into a cylinder and when carbon is arranged like this it can conduct both heat and electricity. Nanotubes can be used to make a huge range of things, such as conductive films for touchscreen displays, flexible electronics fabrics that create energy, antennas for 5G networks while NASA has used them to prevent electric shocks on the Juno spacecraft.”

Black plastics are commonly used as packaging for ready meals and fruits and vegetables in the supermarkets, but can’t easily be recycled. This is why the researchers decided to test in particular the black plastic.

During the study, they removed the carbon and then constructed nanotube molecules from the bottom up using the carbon atoms and used the nanotubes to transmit electricity to a light bulb in a small demonstrator model.

Now, the team plans to make high purity carbon electrical cables, using waste plastic materials and to improve the nanotube material’s electrical performance and also increase the output. They are prepared for large-scale deployment in the next three years.

Dr. Orbaek White said:

“The research is significant as carbon nanotubes can be used to solve the problem of electricity cables overheating and failing, which is responsible for about 8% of electricity is lost in transmission and distribution globally.

This may not seem like much, but it is low because electricity cables are short, which means that power stations have to be close to the location where electricity is used, otherwise the energy is lost in transmission.

Many long range cables, which are made of metals, can’t operate at full capacity because they would overheat and melt. This presents a real problem for a renewable energy future using wind or solar, because the best sites are far from where people live.”

So even though black plastic can’t be recycled, these brilliant scientists have discovered a way to use it by extracting the carbon for renewable energy purposes by creating high-efficiency electricity cables to save some of that 8% of electricity lost from overheating and failure.

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